


all we can do is keep breathing

by bildungsromantic



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 05:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1927983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bildungsromantic/pseuds/bildungsromantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In three days, they will be married. He can hardly believe it — that after so many adventures and mysteries and close calls with death, he will be allowed to settle down with a good woman and make a normal life for himself. The kind of life Holmes, with his liquor, his needle, his fondness for Irene Adler, will never have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all we can do is keep breathing

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in December 2009 over on Livejournal.

The week of Watson and Mary’s wedding, Holmes falls conveniently ill. On Monday, Holmes sends a courier himself, and the message is too dramatic to cause any real worry, but on Wednesday there is a message from Mrs. Hudson — a terse line in her neat, feminine hand — so Watson has no choice but to don his hat and his coat, to kiss Mary on the cheek, and to announce that he’s off to Baker Street and will hopefully be home by dinner. Watson hesitates in the doorway. “You don’t mind, do you?”  
  
Mary looks back at him, her expression soft. She smoothes her hands over the front of her skirt. “No, not at all. Give Mr. Holmes my best.”  
  
Watson is still thinking of her smile when he arrives at 221B. In three days, they will be married. He can hardly believe it — that after so many adventures and mysteries and close calls with death, he will be allowed to settle down with a good woman and make a normal life for himself. The kind of life Holmes, with his liquor, his needle, his fondness for Irene Adler, will never have.  
  
Well, so be it. Holmes has had his chances, there can be no doubt. He has had women who could be with him properly, without all of the danger and unpredictability of Miss Adler, and, failing that, he has had the opportunity to make alliances and forge friendships with respectable members of society. Instead, he befriends child pickpockets and beautiful criminals and Dr. John Watson himself. Watson smiles and thinks, There’s no accounting for taste.  
  
Mrs. Hudson greets him with more warmness than she ever demonstrated when he lived there. “Come in, come in,” she says, her grin only a little too thin to be entirely genuine, her manners impeccable as she asks if she can take his hat or if he’d like a cup of tea. How bizarre, to be treated like a guest in what was, until only weeks ago, his home. Sometimes he forgets that he ever left it, really. Even just now, he’d checked both pockets in his waistcoat before he remembered he hasn’t got a key anymore. Knocking on his own door — now that was a bit odd, too.  
  
“And how are you, Mrs. Hudson? I hope Sherlock’s not causing too much trouble.”  
  
Her expression grows wearier, though she tries valiantly to hide it. “I daresay Mr. Holmes is still adjusting to your absence, Doctor. Things just aren’t the same without you here.” Her mouth turns down, fractionally, barely noticeably, except that Holmes has taught Watson to notice everything. A frown: that must mean that Mrs. Hudson truly is worried.  
  
“Perhaps I ought to see to the patient now.” Watson takes a step toward Holmes’s rooms. “He’s in bed?”  
  
Mrs. Hudson shakes her head, not quite disagreeing. “He was in bed when I brought him tea, but you know Mr. Holmes. Take your eye off him for a minute, just one minute, and he’s up and about, conducting one of his experiments or playing like mad at that violin of his.”  
  
“Yes, of course. Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”  
  
“Nice to see you again, Doctor.” Turning to go, she adds, “And congratulations on your wedding. Saturday’s sure to be lovely.”  
  
Watson thanks her again, and does not think about Saturday, about Mary, about his bride all in creamy white, or about the promises he will make that day. He faces Holmes’s door, and he turns the knob.  
  
Inside, there is mostly darkness. No surprise there, at least. The only kind of illumination Holmes has ever trusted is the sort that comes from his mind. He has never needed sunshine or lamplight to make anything clear. In fact, all it does, when he’s in one of his moods, is give him a headache.  
  
“You didn’t ask my permission to come in.” Holmes’s voice is a bit hoarse, but whether it’s due to illness — natural illness, that is, not the kind caused by drink or worse — is hard to tell. “You do realize you don’t actually live here anymore.”  
  
Watson focuses on the shadow in the armchair. “Report me for trespassing then. In the meantime, tell me your symptoms.”  
  
“My, aren’t we the consummate professional.”  
  
“Holmes.” Watson lets a little anger leak into his voice. “I assume you have a headache, which is why I’ve been gracious enough to leave the curtains closed. Please recall that I am not always so kind.”  
  
Holmes laughs, a low, familiar sounds that strikes right at Watson’s gut. He and Holmes have been friends for so many years, and he could never admit it, not to Mary and certainly not to Holmes, but at times he feels out of sync with life when he is so out of sync with his friend. To be a part of a partnership for so long, even a partnership as unequal as this one can sometimes be, requires more than trust and friendship — it requires the formation of habits. It is habitual, expecting each other to be there, expecting to hear each other’s voices and the sound of each other’s footsteps, to rescue each other when they need rescuing, and to wait for rescue when it comes to that. These are all habits, and for people like Holmes and Watson, habits are nearly impossible to break.  
  
“You’re right, old boy.” Holmes lumbers to his feet, and even in the room’s dusky light, Watson can see that his friend is none too steady. “My symptoms are these: a headache, as you deduced; my vision is somewhat blurred; my appetite is gone; and Mrs. Hudson has informed me that I’m being even more boorish than usual. Diagnosis, Dr. Watson?”  
  
Watson sighs, removing his hat and hanging it over the corner of a table. “Sit back down. It sounds to me like you just haven’t been sleeping.” He approaches Holmes, his hands on his hips, and peers down at him. “Have you?”  
  
“Right in one. I always do underestimate your abilities as a doctor.”  
  
Watson sighs and kneels, reaching for Holmes’s wrist. “Let me check your pulse.” His forefingers curl around Holmes’s wrist, resting on the smooth stretch of skin above the thick blue vein that beats a little too quickly beneath Watson’s touch. Watson can feel Holmes’s dark eyes watching him, can hear Holmes’s quiet breaths. Holmes smells like scotch and tobacco and sweat, unpleasant when compared to the sweet floral scent of his fiancée, but above all things familiar.  
  
“I don’t think,” Watson says, keeping his voice low and even, still ghosting his fingers over Holmes’s wrist, “that you’ve underestimated me, Holmes. I think you’ve underappreciated me.” He looks up, and Holmes’s face is there, dark, eternally thoughtful, and too close.  
  
“Underappreciated?” Holmes turns his hand until his palm fits over the back of Watson’s hand. He squeezes. “No, you’ve never been that.”  
  
Watson remains frozen in the quiet, lamplit study, Holmes’s hand on his own, words caught between them that neither can find the will to say. (This avoidance, it too is a habit.) When Watson hears the hour chime, the bells like explosions in his ears, he thinks of Mary and of wedding bells, and he does not know who he is betraying more with the thought. But still he stays, he and Holmes, for one extended moment that each will put away when the time comes, and forget about.   
  
This moment is a unique occurrence, a strike of lightning. It will never happen again. It can never happen again. But Watson wishes he did not have to pull away just yet.  
  
With one last look at Holmes, Watson forces himself to retract his hand, his body. He finds his own space. He takes a breath, and then another, until the air does not taste like Sherlock Holmes. “Please,” he says eventually. “Do try to get some sleep.”  
  
“Whatever you say, dear Doctor.” Holmes grins sharply, and Watson steps back again, dizzy, only wishing for light and tea and Mary. All this darkness — he’s so afraid he could get used to it.  
  
“And Holmes — ”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
Watson does not look at him. “You’ll be there on Saturday, won’t you?”  
  
There is a long pause, and then the sound of a scraping match and a burst of light. The scent of Holmes’s pipe is instantly overwhelming. “Yes. I’ll be there.”  
  
Watson collects his hat, and hurries out the door, and does not care that he will be late for dinner.


End file.
